Welding Engineer

Unipart is launching a flagship, fast-paced manufacturing project in Coventry, combining high-volume electrification assembly with complex injection-moulding inputs. Fully aligned with Unipart’s Sector and Growth Strategy and The Unipart Way Forward Plan, this exciting venture will scale rapidly from zero to over 200 team members within a four-month period. A technical, hands-on Welding Engineer is sought to lead the development, validation and process control of critical joining activities across battery module packs, electrification assemblies and specialised fabrications. Joining at the ground level, the successful candidate will translate engineering specifications into robust weld procedure specifications (WPSs) and oversee weld quality testing and bridge prototype development into volume series manufacturing in a high-impact environment.

Responsibilities:

• Weld process development: develop, optimise and validate welding and joining processes (including power beam, tungsten inert gas (TIG) and metal inert gas (MIG) welding), from concept through to volume series production
• Specification and governance: translate customer engineering requirements into detailed welding engineering specifications, generating WPSs and supporting process validation (PV) schedules
• Quality assurance and testing: implement destructive and non-destructive weld quality control methods, utilising materials laboratory equipment (optical, metrology, X-ray) to evaluate joint integrity and process capability
• New product introduction (NPI) and quality core tools: develop and maintain process failure mode and effects analysis (PFMEA), control plans and design of experiments (DOEs) to support NPI and rapid root-cause problem-solving
• Safety and regulatory compliance: ensure all welding operations adhere strictly to industry standards, internal quality systems and site safety, health & environmental (SHE) procedures.

Experience:

It would be beneficial for candidates to have the following skills and experience; however, candidates are encouraged to apply if they think they would be able to perform well in this role.

• Welding engineering background: proven experience as a welding engineer, metallurgy specialist or process engineer within automotive, aerospace, defence or high-precision manufacturing environments
• Joining and materials expertise: hands-on experience in power beam welding, TIG/MIG welding or advanced materials joining, with a solid understanding of metallurgy and weld defect analysis
• Quality and laboratory testing knowledge: familiarity with weld testing frameworks, destructive/non-destructive inspection methods and metrology and materials laboratory processes
• Qualifications and problem- solving: degree or HND in materials science, metallurgy, mechanical or manufacturing engineering (or equivalent practical industry experience), with strong data-driven decision-making skills.

Benefits:

• 33 days’ holiday (including bank holidays)
• Permanent, full-time, on-site position
• Pension
• Life assurance
• Employee assistance programme
• Wellbeing support
• Flexible benefits, including cycle-to-work scheme.

The successful candidate may have experience in or be interested in the following roles: metallurgist, welding specialist, process engineer, joining engineer, materials engineer, weld process engineer, non-destructive testing (NDT) engineer, welding technologist, manufacturing engineer or weld quality engineer.

Unipart, Garsington Road, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2PG